By Gneisenau
Prologue
“So you’re sure there have been no other reports, corporal?”
“Definitely, sir. We’ve send messengers everywhere to check, just as you ordered, sir. We’ve send them even all the way to the garrison at Bartheim. If any of those people went that way… well, then they didn’t make it, sir.”
“So all we have is this kid here who sobs all the time and tells us that his parents have been eaten by…let’s see – large dogs with bones poking out of their chest, and groaning people that smell like auntie Gertrud after she got cold.”
“Yessir.”
“You know the farm he comes from?”
“Yessir. It’s on the way from here to Langehringen, but much closer to that village than to our garrison. With the captain’s permission…”
“What is it, corporal?”
“I’d like to take some men to Langehringen and see what happened there, sir. We’ve had no reports for two weeks now, and usually we get a cartload from them every three days. This is bloody strange, captain. It’s not like this is border country. If something happens here, then…”
“How old are you, corporal?”
“Nineteen, sir.”
“Signed in last year, right?”
“Yessir. I see your point, sir, pardon me. It means we will stay here.”
“No corporal. It means I will be the one in charge when we go there.”
One
Cropfields
Reikland uniforms are a very impressive sight on a parade regiment. They get less impressive after a day’s march, and even less impressive when the day’s march has been through recently harvested, very muddy fields.
But what captain Ludwig von Weiterstedt was currently worrying was not the state of the uniforms of his squad. If he ever had worried about that kind of problems, it was for show – to keep the regulations under the eyes of a superior officer. What was worrying him was that the field they were crossing now was not, as a matter of fact, harvested.
He stopped some yards before the end of the field and, with a single hand signal, ordered his men to kneel down. It wasn’t particularly necessary, the crops were high enough to conceal a grown-up man, but von Weiterstedt had seen to much carefully planned ambushes been spoiled by carelessly hidden weapons. The sun was getting low, shining on the horizon like a huge orange ball, flooding all of it with its warm light, and the reflections on the halberds and muskets would be easily seen from the close buildings if they were not careful.
He scanned the village meticulously. Langehringen was not, by any means, a large settlement. It was just large enough so that the buildings formed something of a town square. They were mostly the simple, straw-roofed stone houses that looked familiar to everyone in the Reikland, were people took a lot of pride in living in stone houses, even though they were damn cold in the winter. He could make out the belltower, a solid-built structure with a huge bell hanging openly in the top floor. There were some stables and a lot of storage-buildings. Given the state of the fields, those were very likely empty. Langehringen was what came out when several farmers decided it would be prudent to join the efforts, and settled down together. It was not much more.
There was, on the other hand, a tavern, which indicated a certain level of… business. At least normally. At an hour like this, the whole place should have been bustling with live, men returning from the work on the fields, children playing in the gentle glow of the fading sun. Cows should moo, hens should cluck, dogs should bark. Instead, it was disturbingly silent. Oh, there were sounds, but they were coming from behind, out of the fields, were locusts were chirping and birds singing. The fields surrounding the settlement, covered with rich, golden, overripe crop, were producing the usual sounds of nature. The settlement itself was only producing the utter silence of death.
Von Weiterstedt wasted no words on this, it was plain enough. He did not need to see the face of the men behind him to know that they had understood. Out of curiosity, however, he shot a glance at the man cowering next to him. Hartmut Kreutz was down on one knee, watching the scene seemingly without interest. Despite his heavy armour and his heavy black and red clothing, there was not a single bead of sweat on his bald head, even though the autumn sun had done its best job to exhaust the men. He had rested his worn-out two-handed hammer on his shoulder and was fixing the handle with one chain-gloved hand. Von Weiterstedt disliked the young man. He had taken the place of the garrison’s priest after old Gerhard Rosberg had went out to kill some beastmen in the woods, and hadn’t returned. Von Weiterstedt fancied himself sufficiently pious, he made his prayers two times a day and went to the temple once in a year. He didn’t oppose if people did more than that. Kreutz, however, was a different sort. Seeing in those pale, cold grey eyes, it was apparent that the man was a fanatic. He was the type of priest that would happily burn whole families at the stake because the mother had once been near a bucket of milk that turned sour. Of course he wouldn’t smile while doing it, because Kreutz never smiled. Come to think about it, von Weiterstedt had never seen an emotion in that tanned face. The man didn’t even blink.
“Alright, soldiers.” The captain turned himself half round. “Seems to be no one at home, right?”
This got a nervous laughter from the younger men, and grim silence from the older ones. Kreutz did not even stir. My god, half of them are almost children! They had grown up in this country, they knew the places. The first time there was a real threat for them, it was in a place they almost called home. But he couldn’t help it. Too many soldiers had been killed during the Chaos incursion, and now they had to fill up the ranks with people who had had their first shave just yesterday, people who could, with some effort, even be his grandchildren. Blast it.
“Let’s have a look then. You know how it works. Do your job, but be careful.”
“They have no missile weapons,” Kreutz said levelly. He hadn’t even turned his eyes away from the village.
“Even though, no need to rush in without looking for cover,” replied von Weiterstedt. “Sergeant?”
“Yessir?” Sergeant Rimscheid had gone somewhat on the portly side in the last ten years, but he’d seen him kill two beastmen while defending a fallen comrade. This man was someone he could trust in.
“We go in by threes. Get the men sorted.”
Two
Town square
Team by team, the soldiers were pouring into the village. It made von Weiterstedt’s heart rise a little to see how well even the greenest of the squad were doing their work. Rimscheid had sorted them into four teams, and had seen to it that the two teams not led by him or the captain were instead led by decently experienced fighters. Each team also contained one handgunner. When they had darted out of the field, Kreutz had still been sitting there, motionless. Von Weiterstedt really didn’t care whether he came or not, or why he was doing it. The man had had no military education, and if he wasn’t to interfere, then all the better.
The hasty steps of the soldiers were the only sound that broke the silence. In the short gaps between them, when one team had gone into position and the next one had not yet moved, the obscene silence became almost solid. Even the steps on the raw, downtrodden earth of the village seemed to be muffled, as if the silence was reluctant to go. As soon as they had left the field, even nature’s sounds had faded away far quicker than they ought. And then, in the last light of the sun, von Weiterstedt could make out something else.
It was not only that no one was in the village, that there were no people. There were no animals either, not even the occasional rat. There was actually no life here. He couldn’t spot a single plant. Leaning on a grey stonewall, he thought he could see some moss just next to him. He touched it carefully with his armoured hand. It was quite obvious that it was dead. Automatically, he looked for the tree on the townsquare. Every rural village had one in these parts, but usually they looked more alive. Even in the worst dry period, they at least looked alive at all.
The men had taken position on all four corners of the town square. The white uniforms were quite visible even in the dusk. The first step was done, now to the difficult part. They had been careful, but anybody with brains and ears who was hiding in the village couldn’t have not noticed them. No need to be subtle, then. The captain’s voice rang through the silence.
“Check for the inhabitants. Sergeant, you start with the tavern. Wenger, your team looks first in the large barn in the north. I’ll have a look in the building next to us. Schmidtbauer, you and your men remain here and keep an eye on the town square.”
There was a brief chorus of “Aye, sir” before the men went to the task.
It was Rimscheid’s team that made the first encounter. They had spent half an hour to check the two tavern’s floors, looked in every cupboard, opened every trunk. They had lit some torches in the building, because by now it was night and the full moon was illuminating the townsquare brightly, but not the interior. They had found nothing, not even some clues indicating that there had been a fight, not even blood anywhere. The one building that should have been the center of the village at this time of the day was devoid of any life, just as the village itself. Then they had proceeded with the cellar. It consisted of an oblong main room with some barrels in it and a door on one side.
“Open it, boy.”
And suddenly, there was a horrible stench in the room. Out of the door, groaning, came what a couple of weeks ago had been a human being. It definitely wasn’t any more. The skin was greenish-grey. A part of the skull’s bones was missing so that the rotting brain was visible. One eye was hanging out of the socket, from which dark blood was running down the face. The lips had been seemingly gnawed upon and revealed splintered teeth. The majority of the body was mercifully clothed in a torn shroud. Perhaps the worst about it was the obnoxious smell, the sweet, disgusting reek of corpses one will never forget in a lifetime.
Rimscheid heard the man behind him curse and saw him raise his musket, but he was faster. The lad who had opened the door was on his knees, throwing up, which was fine since he therefore wasn’t in the way. The sergeant brought his halberd down and thrusted it at the creature. Putting all of his considerable weight in the movement, shouting “For the Emperor!!”, he ran forward, impaling his foe’s chest, until the halberd stuck in the behind wall of the room the undead had come from.
Then he let go of the halberd. It had been a neat blow. The blade was almost completely buried in the chest of the creature, which was clawing with dirty fingernails at the shaft of the weapon. The unlife was clearly fading from it, but not even a strong and healthy man could have pulled the halberd out of the wall. Rimscheid wiped his sweaty forhead as he watched how the creature finally ceased to move, like a madman’s puppy hanging from a hook in the wall. Sometimes it paid to be a bit overweighted.
Then he turned round. Jürgen, the man with the musket, was staring at the zombie. Hagen was still on his knees, but had stopped to throw up. By the look of his face, this was only because there was nothing left in his stomach.
“Get up, boy!” Rimscheid said, not unfriendly. He pulled the young man up by one arm. “You are a soldier of Reikland, are you not?”
“Yessir.” Hagen swallowed. “Sorry, sarge. I just…”
“Never mind that, boy.” He turned to the handgunner. “We’re finished here. Let’s go up and tell the captain what a load of cow-droppings we’re into, shall we?”
“Yes, sarge.” The silence from above was ruptured by a musket-shot.
“Guess he knows already.” muttered Rimscheid. “Let’s move, boys!”
Three
Storage cellar
There are those that say that pain is an illusion of the body.
When Gunther woke up, his whole body was so filled with pain that he rather wished his life was an illusion, one that was going to end soon. He wanted to scream, but uttering a sound made the pain even worse. It felt like molten iron had been poured down his throat.
It came from that hellish potion, he remembered, the one they forced him to drink every morning, him and all the others they had taken alive. It made him unconscious every time, and he could see the intention behind that: the storage cellar, while being the best-built structure in Langehringen besides the belltower, was not designed to be a prison. Being the son of the village’s blacksmith, Gunther was a strong man and would have escaped easily during the day, were it not for this damned liquid.
He laid on the floor motionless, and recalled his surroundings, still dizzy from the potion. He couldn’t see a single thing in this utmost darkness, so he just had to remember. He knew the place. This was one small room out of ten in the storage cellar, usually used to store the milk and eggs and other things that were to be sent to the nearby markets and garrisons every few days. There were no windows, and the room was barely large enough for him to lie down. There was a thick oaken door, leading to the corridor from which the other rooms could be accessed. The door had no lock, it was not there to keep people in or out, but to ward of the heat in summer. It could be opened outwards, but he knew it had been blocked from the outside. Some days ago he had tried to open it, and had almost dislocated his shoulder. Some days ago…
It must have been at least twelve days that he had been in here, now. There was a mug of foul water every night, and a lump of raw meat. There was no light except an unsteady shine from the torches outside that fell in under the door, but the room was too small to miss the food. In the beginning, Gunther hadn’t touched the meat, until the hunger overruled his brain after a week or so. After a week of starvation, a man will eat practically everything.
And then the memories struck him like thunder, all at once…
He had been down in the cellar of the tavern when all this had started, together with Anna, the carpenter’s daughter. They had been meeting for some weeks, secretly, because in their youthful innocence, they thought it could be only like that. Anna was a stunningly beautiful girl with a mane of blond, curly hair and eyes as blue as violets and as deep as the ocean. She could sit for hours, looking at him, smiling, listening to the stories he had once heard from his father. Gernot Hufschmied had been in the army before he settled down, and Gunther told his love about the terrible things that lurked in the woods of the empire, and about the vile greenskins, the stout dwarfs and the mysterious elves.
Just the night before, they had shared their first kiss. The bartender, Johann, allowed them to meet in the cellar, and did so with a wise and benevolent smile on his old, fat face. Here they had been sitting the last days, and were sitting now, hand in hand, when a sound interrupted Gunther’s story of Emperor Karl Franz’ victory over Gathrok the Flayer, Lord of the Beastmen.
“Did you hear that?” he asked, reluctant to pull his gaze away from those eyes of her. Anna looked around as Gunther stood up.
“Johann?” he whispered, though the planks above them were so thick that the people in the tavern wouldn’t have heard him even if he’d shouted. He saw a movement behind one of the rows of barrels.
“Johann, can I help you? We won’t be here for long, just let us…”
His voice trailed away. The person coming from behind the barrels definitely wasn’t Johann. This man would have fitted twice into the bartender. He was clad in a plain and dirty white cloth, like a bedsheet, and was moving slowly. As if he hadn’t heard Gunther, his eyes took a while until they rested on him. Then, he advanced slowly.
“’Evening, good sir!” Gunther said, a little bit uncertain. “Is there something we can do for you?”
This got no answer. Gunther frowned and turned to Anna, who was staring at the man with a puzzled look. “Do you know him?”
“No…” she said, slowly. “He’s not from here. Perhaps a beggar? Look at his clothing.”
Gunther stared at the stranger. Now that the man was halfway through the room, he could make out in the dim light of the lanterns that his skin was of an odd colour. It looked pale, with a hint of a greyish green. Gunther swallowed. Suddenly, there seemed to be a lump in his throat.
“Plague!” he whispered. “Get away, Anna!”
The girl stood up and moved sideways to the left, pressing her back against the wall. There was terror in her beautiful eyes now.
“Please, sir, if you would be so kind to stop…”
The man groaned, but walked on.
Gunther glanced around. The man was advancing slowly between the two rows of barrels. They could easily avoid him, but that wouldn’t do for long. The stairs to the tavern were right behind him. Gunther looked to his right and saw the open door to the small room where Johann kept his brooms and buckets. One broom was leaning on the wall just next to him.
Gunther took it and retreated slowly to the open door. The stranger took no care of Anna, who had moved behind the left row of barrels and was watching anxiously. When the man was close enough, Gunther took a quick step to the left and forward, pushed the broom in the other’s backside and forced him violently into the small room. He kicked the door close. It had no lock, but it had no handle on the inside, either. Then he breathed deeply.
Somebody touched his hand, and he startled. When turned to it, he saw a far more pleasant sight then the stranger had been. There was admiration shining from Anna’s face. Strange enough, this didn’t make him as happy as it did usually.
“Well done.” She gave him a kiss. Gunther smiled faintly. “Let’s go upstairs and tell the others. I think we should send a messenger. Father had told me there was plague up in the north. If some of those people are coming to the Reikland, we should warn the other villages and the garrisons.”
Gunther nodded, absent-mindedly. “He smelled… strange.” he managed.
“Of course. He’s ill. The plague smells like death.”
“No, I don’t mean that. He smelled of… earth, I think. Fresh earth. And that piece of cloth he was wearing… And he didn’t say a single thing!” He stood and listened. The stranger was scratching at the door with his nails from the inside. It sounded horrible.
She took his chin and turned his face towards her. “Look at me. Let’s get upstairs and tell the others, right?” She flashed him a smile that made him forget everything else.
“Allright then.”
At this point, Gunther’s memories faded away. The human mind is able to defend itself quite efficiently, and Gunther had suppressed the pictures of the following events for more than two weeks, out of fear of going mad. Still, while he could suppress the pictures, he could not suppress his knowledge about what had happened.
Gunther Hufschmied started to cry.